Soon after this, Mr. Millar, the first publisher of the "Sketch-Book," engaged me to write for the "European Magazine," New Series, without allowing me to know that the "John Bull" newspaper and Theodore Hook were at the bottom of the affair. I wrote for it month after month, upon American matters, until I discovered the truth, and had just got through a sharp controversy with Mathews, when I found it necessary to knock off: the "John Bull" constantly abusing America, and Theodore Hook losing no opportunity of saying the most offensive and brutal things of us,—as, for example, that Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Adams both died drunk on the 4th of July.
I had also contributed a series of papers to the "London Magazine," under the title of "Yankee Notions," and was showing up John Dunn Hunter as he deserved, in which I was followed soon after by Mr. Sparks in the "North American Review," about the time that the "Edinburgh Review" adopted in the lump my theory of "Men and Women," already referred to, saying in September, 1826, substantially what I had said in October, 1824. "We think it probable," says Mr. Jeffrey, "that some men have originally a greater excitability or general vivacity of mind than others, and that is the chief difference. But considering how variously they may be developed or directed in after-life, it seems to us of no sort of importance whether we call it a temperament, and say that it is shown by the color of the hair and the eyes, or maintain that it is a balance of active powers and propensities, the organs of which are in the skull."
I had also written for the "Westminster," and, in short, was furnishing about all of the monthlies and two of the quarterlies with American pabulum; and yet the public were not satisfied. It seemed as if "increase of appetite did grow with what it fed on." This, of course, must have been very gratifying to "Old Christopher," though he did not like the idea of anybody's knowing who wrote for the "Maga," and letting the "delicious secret out." He wanted all his contributors to himself, either in fact or in appearance; and when he found, from something I said in the "London," or somewhere else, that I was known as the writer of the "Blackwood Papers," he took me to task in a way that displeased me. So we quarrelled,—or rather I quarrelled,—for he did not. He kept his temper, and I lost mine,—for which, by the way, I ought to be thankful; and the affair ended by my withdrawing the first of a series of "North American Stories," which I was preparing for him, and returning the fifteen guineas he had paid me for it. It was already in type, and was the framework or skeleton of "Rachel Dyer."
On the whole, I must acknowledge that I was chiefly to blame, though not altogether. I never wrote another line for him, and we had no further correspondence.
About the same time, another misunderstanding arose between him and "O'Doherty," who entered upon a rival enterprise, and became editor of a new monthly, the title of which I do not now remember. It was of the "Blackwood" type, though somewhat exaggerated, being ferocious where "Blackwood" was only sarcastic, and utterly regardless of truth, where "Blackwood" was rather cautious and circumspect in all that required proof. In the very first number there appeared what was claimed to be an extract from that "Life of Byron" which he had given to Moore, and which had been suppressed, if not bought up. It was entitled "My Wedding Night," and went into particulars so much in the style of Byron, that I, for one, have always believed it faithful, and neither an imitation nor a counterfeit. I have since been assured that Lady Caroline Lamb, and two or three more at least "of that ilk," had the reading of these memoirs, and of course portions of the whole might have been copied. But however that may be, the publication by Dr. Maginn of the chapter mentioned was either such a piece of heartless treachery or such an impudent fabrication as no decent person would venture to encourage. Though other chapters were promised, not another line appeared; the magazine blew up, the Doctor was tabooed, and soon after died a miserable death.
But enough. That William Blackwood was an extraordinary man is evident enough from the astonishing success of his Magazine. Whatever may have been its history, its faults, or its follies, it has maintained itself now in the public favor of the world itself for nearly fifty years, and most of the time at a prodigious elevation, in unapproachable solitude. Burning and acrimonious, unrelenting, and at times deadly in its hatred, full of desperate partisanship, and of judicial blindness toward all who belonged to the other side in politics, it was always full of earnestness and originality and tumultuous life, and often-times not only generous, but magnanimous and forgiving.